This title of this piece is slightly biased, but let me put it this way: if you don’t have a child, and you don’t like children, and you’re not planning to have children any time soon, then when your friend has a child, you will lose that friend.

Of course, I can’t speak on behalf of everyone, only on behalf of myself. In my case, I’ve already lost a number of friends after they had children.

On QQ, I’ve blocked off some chat groups from university and high school. When more than three people in a group have become parents, the topic of conversation always revolves around children.

And then it’s your individual friends. Every day, their status update is about their kids. From the start of conversation, there are only two topics: 1. My child can speak now, my child can walk now, my child can recite Tang poetry now… and so on. 2. Although I never used to like kids, now that I have one, I think they’re amazing, really, believe me, you’d better have your own soon as well.’ Believe me, no matter what they talk about it always revolves around these two topics. If it were a few years ago, I would have spent a lot of time arguing back from every angle about why I don’t wanna have a kid now. Now I just leave my instant messenger bleeping, and instead, I spend my time listening to music, reading, smoking, drinking tea, taking a shit… any of these things are more meaningful to me now. After a while, the instant messenger stops bleeping, and another friend has basically disappeared.

In real life, when some of your friends have become ”parents”, it’s the same as with QQ chats, the only difference being that verbal sounds replace texts. These friends will get together and talk about their children until they forget about time and space, forget about the universe and forget about life and death. And as time passes by, you’ve pretty much lost these friends too.

These two situations are still bearable, but the scariest thing for me now is to visit a friend who has a child. It is a torture for me, especially if the family has a child under school age.

I went to chat with an old friend, and my friend thought of nothing but his baby. If you don’t speak highly of his baby, he gets upset at you.

I’m not the kind of person who compliments other people’s babies. Rather, all I want is for the baby to calm down so that I can have the opportunity to speak with their father. Most of the time, however, the father just looks at the baby affectionately and dotes on him. At the same time, he looks at you, expecting you to interact with his baby. Jesus Christ! I’ve tried a few times.

An example of this is: given he’s an old friend, I summed up the courage, drew upon memories of grand conversations with him, and with great difficulty I attempted to put on some weird facial expressions and body language. Very quickly the baby warmed to me and started giggling and screaming. The baby’s parents were happy, the baby’s grandparents listening outside were very happy, everyone was happy, except me.

In the parents and grandparent’s eyes, I was like an actor standing in the heat, wearing short sleeves, putting on a show. I endured a hellish afternoon during which the baby’s parents and grandparents kept saying: “Look, you love children so much, he’s getting so attached to you, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and have a kid!”

I’ve spent money, bought presents, diligently played an act and flattered – all for the sake of this one afternoon. Once out the door, I lamented to myself: mate, I’m not being insensitive, I just don’t dare to come back again.

After this experience, I did visit a friend with a baby once more. The only thing for me was to stay cold-blooded. The baby tried to surround me, but I was careful not to smile, and just pulled a long face for as long as it took. Very quickly, the parents’ face started a competition with me: who would be the first to pull a donkey’s face. This embarrassed everyone, except baby, who just went on yapping his haha’s and hihi’s. Soon this became the music of the room. The friends added laughter to laughter, and invited me to come play again, but didn’t see me off. Good-bye again, dear friend!

Forcing myself to play with a baby feels like torture. But if I follow my heart and do not play with the baby or compliment the baby, my friend will feel uncomfortable. What should I do? Of course I choose not to make myself uncomfortable.

When I go out with friends who have become parents, it comes down to the following: either the friends will come with their baby, or the friends will urge you to visit their house, and see the baby on the way. Both situations make me extremely uncomfortable. What should I do? Of course I choose not to make myself uncomfortable.

Do remember, you can’t complain about this experience with friends who have children. They will just tell you: “Don’t judge other people, wait until you’ve become a father yourself. You will be the same, maybe even worse. What are you going to say? Promise that ‘I will never become that kind of person.’ Never say never, otherwise your hard times will begin.

(PS: There must be some parents out there saying: “This article is exaggerating, we’re not that bad.)

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